JustImpaired

Director of Sales

Contracts/SoW in the sales cycle

Hey guys,

I'm in charge of sales at a small startup. Prior to this, my experience has always been being pretty up front with the contract terms and sending a full contract over with the final quote once everything is set in stone as far as pricing negotiation, so that is how I've handled it at my current role.

Leadership recently requested that I stop doing that and not send any sort of formal paperwork over until a verbal decision has been made.

In light of that, I'm curious, when do you send over contracts/statement of works in your sales cycle?

Thanks!

When do you send a contract?

Attached poll

First Quote/proposal Final Quote/negotiation finished Just if they ask for a contract Verbal "Yes" / I'll sign today

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

📈 Closing

☁️ Software Tech

14 comments

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Not_2_Salezy

Member

Program Manager

When I deliver a formal quote, the prospect gets all the fun paperwork. 90% of the time they’ve already committed to buying if we’ve gotten that far. I Don’t deliver multiple quotes. It’s a waste of time and resources. Earlier in your process, deliver the number verbally. If they want to move forward, offer to get them started on applying for terms, which can take a few weeks depending on the size of the org. You’ll know right away how serious they are.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

So i will send over a price quote/ SOW before I get a verbal commitment since many groups wont give a formal commitment before they review pricing and ROI.

but i wont send the MSA or BAA or start security reviews or IT reviews until AFTER a verbal commitment has been given and they tell me they are no longer looking at other vendors.

The legal process takes for ever, no use in starting it too soon.

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

Interesting, I usually ask for contract reviews by the prospect as we do IT review. I want skin in the game from them as well.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

When you say contract review. What are you referring to?

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

Just the standard licensing or support agreements. Get their process started at the same time we are feeling pain from IT

SaaSyBee

Politicker

Founder

Curious to know, since the legal process takes forever, does that ever kill your deal after it's in verbal?

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

its never cost me a deal in the sense that they changed their mind and went with a competitor. because its not normally my company that makes it take so long. its normally the customer.

BUT it has pushed deals out super far because they cant get their shit together to get a review complete or a document signed.

So its cost me missing quota but not losing a deal all together haha

SaaSyBee

Politicker

Founder

Oof. Well glad it's never cost you a deal, but sorry to hear it's pushed out your deals and made you miss quota

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

I want to make the agreement real as soon as possible sending over the contract makes it real and you find out if they’re serious or not. If they’re serious they’ll get back to you with comments and read through it. If they’re window shopping you’ll never hear back on it.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I have to request a contract from our legal team. Since I don’t generate them myself, I have to be mindful of the time involved in putting one together, even though they are usually pretty standard. Our team is good at getting them to me quickly, but I do wait until we are negotiating terms and I have a path to closure. Some companies are quicker than others.

SaaSyBee

Politicker

Founder

Oof, that sounds so brutal. How standard is standard? At our company, we have templates that we use so we don't have to go through legal for every deal. So legal approves the most up-to-date version and then we can use that version to create the contract. Our Sales VP still needs to sign off if we're offering a discount, but otherwise, we're good to go on our own.

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

There's a lot of custom dev for what we do, so a full scoping exercise is required, and has a formal requirements document as the major output.

From that, and some internal documents, I then need to build out a project engagement agreement. License agreement is straightforward though, and that's at the same time.

YoursTruly

Politicker

Account Executive (SaaS)

when do you want to be live? okay that means you need to sign by x date. How long does procurement/legal take? Now I know regardless of where I'm at in the cycle when I need to get them a copy of the contract to start redlines.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

It really depends.

When you feel good about it moving forward toward a sale it's important to be ahead of any red flags which may result from Contracts/Legal review. I have sent draft documents at when I sent a quote, after a verbal yes, when they have asked, etc.

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JustImpaired

Contracts/SoW in the sales cycle

When do you send a contract?

14 comments

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